A. Field of the Invention
This invention relates in general to a discrete circuit component and the process of its fabrication and, in particular, to one having temporarily-clogged through-holes in the fabrication stage and the process of its fabrication.
B. Description of the Related Art
Active and passive discrete circuit components such as diodes, resistors, capacitors and inductors etc. are widely used for the construction of electronic circuits. Regardless of either signal or power, or, linear or digital applications, different types of discrete circuit components are essential for the construction of various electronic circuit systems. Along with their counterparts fabricated inside integrated circuit (IC) devices, diodes, resistors, capacitors and inductors in the form of discrete circuit components are produced and consumed in mass quantities.
Due to the low unit prices and the large quantity used, fabrication of these discrete circuit components is particularly suitable for and, practically, requires automated mass production. Without production automation to achieve low price and fast production rates, these discrete products cannot be competitive commercially.
Circuit components of the discrete type are available in many different packages, among which the leaded package is one of the most common. With the constantly-pursued goal of miniaturization, discrete circuit components produced to the standard of SMT (Surface-Mount Technology) have become the indispensable components in modern electronics industry for the production of almost all sorts of electronic devices, regardless of whether or not they are of miniaturized design. However, as is well known in the art, the manufacture of many of these discrete circuit components still relies on human labor to certain extent. For example, some discrete diodes are manufactured with involvement of considerable level of human labor in some of its production procedural steps.
On the other hand, some conventional automated production methods for discrete circuit components employ the making of more than two through-holes for each component. Mechanical drilling of these through-holes for each of the component units in the gross matrix distributed over the entire fabrication substrate requires specific level of alignment precision. The drilling also requires that component die be sufficiently cleared off the vicinity of the through-holes structurally. Such spatial requirement places a limitation to the scale of possible reduction in overall component size. In other words, through-holes themselves take up spaces to prevent maximum possible packing density for the component. Further, through-holes formed during the intermediate stages of the device fabrication also incur other problems. For example, the application of molding material for hermetical sealing of the device die can be complicated due to the presence of the through-holes. Plastic molding material under molding pressure may undesirably leak through the through-holes to the opposite side of the structure.
Further, fixtures used for the fabrication of the discrete circuit components of different sizes are also different even though the structural configurations are the same. Different fixture sets has to be prepared for discrete components of the same construction but with different physical dimensions.